Wearable Technology – What we can wait in 2014

I can not agree more with what is said in this blog, “From head to toe, from a wristband that replaces passwords to a device that helps you read on the treadmill everything we wear is getting smart these days”. See here what they can do for you:

If analyst predictions come true, the global wearable technology market will be worth $18 billion by 2018, so we can all imagine that companies of all sizes and colors (large, medium, start-up) are investing heavily into developing robust or cool wearable devices, the infrastructure for connecting them each other, with people and with other Objects-devices and applications to empower people not only to have a healthier and more connected life style (Harry Strasser, Wearable Technologies Group vision) but to improve many industrial business processes.

Sensor development is exploding in labs and startups. The inspiration for the future ultra-connected life and work is accelerating the creation of new business models where the convergence of cloud computing, wearable computing, the internet of things, big data and mobile apps will bring to our daily lives and enterprises tangible personal and business benefits.

That sounds fantastic, isn’t ?, but we need not to forget that users should have the power to decide which objects should be made smart, what information can be shared among objects and other people or companies and convinced that all connections -communication are private and secure.

“The enterprise will leverage wearable technology in ways not being done in the consumer space,” said Himanshu Sareen, CEO of Icreon Tech. “It is our prediction that the enterprise will embrace wearables for their employees specifically in industrial, high-tech and health-care settings.”. On the consumer side, it’s likely investors will also see Google’s Glass become available to the mass market.

The reliability of wearable tech will be improved to facilitate enterprise adoption.

As technology improves cost and performance, more software developers will join the game by actively producing apps for wearable devices and companies experiment with new business models.

Proprietary platforms of Nike, Fitbit and Withings opening up to developers and partnership with Telco Operators will emerge creating new business models. Telcos will also take a look at alliances with other established partnerships like (ICEdot Partners with Flextronics) to define new IoT products and services for consumers.

We will see a battle for become the leader to offer a secure personal data platform that manage thousands of personal and private sensor inputs tracking our lives with actionable outputs, who allow trusted interactions with other “friendly sensor contacts” platforms with a new business model with clear monetization of services.

The Fitbit Zip and Misfit Shine are the first generation of transformational wearables that can be “dressed” with covers and ornamentation. We’ll see this trend rapidly extend to more products: for example, footwear covers for bicycling, or watertight wristband covers for swimming, as well as style-driven covers for social situations.

Initially the covers will be non-functional, but eventually they will inform the wearable inside, enabling instant adaptation of sensor software. We will see covers become more valuable than the sensors they encase.

Let´s take a look at some examples of wearable technology.

Sports – Fashion – Health and Fitness industry

Smart Helmet

The helmet is a tool used extensively in a wide variety of sports. The smart helmets will come with many sensors capturing in real time useful information like air temperature, weather forecast, GPS navigation for traffic jams, heart rate, blood pressure, oxygen saturation.

The future smart helmet will add connectivity with smart phones, with other wearable elements and with other devices. They will part of private and public cloud services and can be controlled through voice control that enables the wearer to can pick up the phone, play music or request a cloud service. With a combination of modern smart phone capabilities and all sorts of apps available on the market this might be a comprehensive sport tool.

Companies to follow: US company Skully Helmets and a group of Russian inventors turned to crowd-funding site Indiegogo in order to develop the LiveMap, which like the PI has an integrated heads-up display. However, the campaign managed to raise less than 10 percent of the initial $150,000 it required to bring a first-generation device to fruition.

Smart Shirt

Your future Smart Shirt will measure blood pressure, heart rate, it also will monitor RR Intervals, Heart Rate Recovery and Heart Rate Variability (HRV), breathing rate and volume. It also will show your step count and how many calories you have burned. Of course it would have smartphone synchronization option and sharing all of this information using cloud services.

Smart Socks

Is a joke ? Wearable technology in socks ?. Not at all, take a look at the Heapsylon web site for inspiration and creativity how socks combined with sensors and a smartphone can become a useful fitness device.

Companies to follow: Heapsylon

Smart Gloves

If you want to improve tennis, golf or baseball, then connect a device with small sensors to transform gloves in smart gloves. Then you can download the basic info into a smartphone or your personal cloud to populate an application that will provide a very detailed 3-D replay with all the possible information you might ever need to improve your technique.

Companies to follow: Zepp has developed a fairly small sensor that can be attached to a glove, bat or racket and can monitor your kick/swing like nothing else before

Smart Watches enjoy a renaissance as accessories

A host of connected smart watches are emerging, with the phone becoming a new digital hub in this “personal body network.”

Companies to follow: Pebble will be the tipping point for early adopters, while MuteWatch 2.0 looks likely to push functionality to new levels

Functional jewelry as armbands takes off

The functional arm and wristbands pioneered by Nike FuelBand and Jawbone Up are setting a powerful trend and sidestepping the functional and aesthetic legacy of wristwatches. A flood of new wristbands is emerging such as Disney World’s Magic Band, which stores guest information and acts as ticket, room key, ride pass and more.

Companies to follow: Luxury brands like Vertu will create iPhone accessories costing far more than any phone.

Audio wearables shape luxury electronics

Prominent headphones have become a must-have accessory of the street-smart digerati, while in-ear systems are also pushing looks and fidelity to new levels.

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Be part of the wearable revolution on January 30, 2014, by joining Golden Networking’s Wearable Computing Conference 2014 New York City (http://wearable-computing-conference.com). Topics to be covered include Key Features of Wearable Technologies, New World for Application Developers, How Wearable Technologies Will Transform the Human Experience, Wearable Computing and its Impact on the Technology Marketplace, and The Future of Wearable Computing Today. RSVP at http://wearablecompcon.eventbrite.com.

One of the biggest threat. The proliferation of wearable devices that connect to the Internet understandably has a great many people worried about the implications for security. Soon enough, hackers could have a direct line to anything from wristwatches to pacemakers, and the damage could be devastating. Here are the top five wearable threats which could have an impact on you.